In many conventional cellular wireless communications networks, transmission power over a plurality of wireless links is controlled in a centralized manner. For example, a base station or central controller device may coordinate communications corresponding to a plurality of mobiles which are using the base station as a point of network attachment in the communications system. The base station and/or central controller manages resource allocation and communications corresponding to a plurality of mobiles competing for the limited air link resources, e.g., granting or denying access, assigning air link resources to mobiles, tracking mobile position, measuring communications channels, controlling transmission power levels, controlling data rates, and/or managing interference. The base station and/or centralized control device can, and generally does, perform closed loop power and timing control operations as part of the management and control of mobile transmissions. The base station's antenna is generally situated such as to provide good channel conditions between the base station and mobiles. The base station and/or centralized controller has a good overall view of the situation in a cell, and it can effectively manage communications corresponding to a plurality of different links between mobiles and the base station, e.g., preventing unacceptable levels of interference on the air link resources due to concurrent transmissions from two mobiles.
In the field of wireless communications there has been a trend to make spectrum available for use by various types of networks in addition to conventional cellular networks. One such network type which has been gaining in popularity and utilization is a peer to peer network, e.g., peer to peer networks lacking centralized control. It is desirable that a peer to peer network be able to support reliable communications over a wide range of distances. In a peer to peer network, lacking centralized control and/or management, a particular wireless communications device may have an incomplete view of the ongoing operations of other devices in its vicinity. For example, due to poor channel conditions between two devices, the two devices may be hidden from one another. Such a condition, sometimes referred to as a hidden node condition, may be caused by an object such as a building obstructing, and thereby blocking one node's transmission path to the other node. In such a situation two wireless communications devices may inadvertently transmit on the same air link resource. Signals from the two devices transmitting concurrently on the same air link resource may interfere with each other such that other devices in the local vicinity, which have good channel conditions to both devices, e.g., because of an unobstructed transmission path to both devices, are unable to decode either transmitted signal. Based on the above discussion there is a need for new methods and apparatus that can detect unacceptable interference due to a hidden node condition and/or take actions to remedy the unacceptable condition.